Mistakes are unacceptable

If you make a mistake that’s obvious just make a self-deprecating joke out of it or apologize and move on.

Slides are essential

Slides are not only not essential in a presentation they are often distracting and downright un-necessary.

Slides can be useful in a presentation but only if they are prepared correctly.

If you decide to use slides in your presentation, they are most effective when they are created after you know what you are going to say. When they are created at this point they are more likely to act as a support for you rather than the main event. Why I build my slides last.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Simply good advice on some essential basics, initially I thought well this is so basic surely no one makes these mistakes do they?… then I thought back to my early presentations and realised I made them all!

So very true!
Too many of our “experts” are poor on presenting their expertize. Worst of all is the typical presentation, where the presenter is reading the slide lines from the screen line by line with his back to the audience.
Presenting is all about communication. You need to interact with the audience more than just speaking to them. Once you feel the rapor between you and your audience, your start to be a good presenter.

Thanks David,
Connect with the audiece and not with the slides. Talk to them, not at them. Minimize words on the screen in lieu of poignant pics. I watched many great speakers execute this flawlessly.

On the flip side, one of my hobbies is to continously educate myself in the areas of biology and physics. Many brilliant minds do not understand presentation basics and the hour plus lectures are tedious and salient points are missed or forwarded through.

Great post! I like the points made that “Forgetting lines spells disaster.” I had an interview once where I had to give a presentation. They wanted the presentation to go a specific length of time and I was going to be judged on how long it went AND how well I presented. I memorized every word in the entire presentation so well that I could wouldn’t forget a single point.

When I was done, I felt I had given a great presentation. When I later asked for feedback, I was told that the presentation was pretty good, but I had it so memorized that they felt I was talking to robots and not interacting with them.

Lesson learned: know your presentation very well, but more importantly, interact with your audience so they learn from the presentation and feel like the presentation is being given to them.

I think it was in Carmine Gallo’s book where he mentioned the 3 types of presentation that happens: 1) the one that you deliver, 2) the one you WISH you delivered and 3) the one the audience experiences. Fortunately for you, the audience often doesn’t know any better so just roll with the punches! Nice post!

These are great points for any presenter. I often teach speakers to know the message they want to present, points they want to make, and the time they have to make it. I advise to think of their slides as note cards and not the presentation itself. This will help them to speak with a flow that’s authentic to them. A presentation is as much about the speaker, as his or her message.